The subject matter disclosed herein relates to gas turbine engines and, more particularly, to turbine airfoils having turbulators arrangements therein.
In turbine engines, such as gas turbine engines or steam turbine engines, fluids at relatively high temperatures contact blades that are configured to extract mechanical energy from the fluids to thereby facilitate a production of power and/or electricity. While this process may be highly efficient for a given period, over an extended time, the high temperature fluids tend to cause damage that can degrade performance and increase operating costs.
Accordingly, it is often necessary and advisable to cool the blades in order to at least prevent or delay premature failures. This can be accomplished by delivering relatively cool compressed air to the blades to be cooled. In many traditional gas turbines, in particular, this compressed air enters the bottom of each of the blades to be cooled and flows through one or more machined passages to cool the blade through a combination of convection and conduction. The passages may include features that enhance heat transfer to assist in cooling the passages, however some arrangements of these features block the cooling air flow to an undesirable extent. Therefore, balancing between blocking the cooling air and obtaining desirable heat transfer properties from the features poses challenges to turbine airfoil manufacturers and operators.